


(Everything But) The Kitchen Sink

by AimeeLouWrites



Series: Things Just Kinda Happen to Cloud, Huh [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Crack, Gen, Kunsel Did Nothing To Deserve This, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, pure unadulterated crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27595469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AimeeLouWrites/pseuds/AimeeLouWrites
Summary: Cloud is thrown back in time and physically altered by Jenova, whichisa problem, actually, because now he's a freaking two-year-old and—hey wait a second, is all of AVALANCHE here too?! Is that Zack? How come he gets to be an adult! ARGH!OR: the crackfic spinoff of Saving Subject C where I pile in every single crack idea I possibly can
Relationships: Angeal Hewley & Cloud Strife, Angeal Hewley & Genesis Rhapsodos & Sephiroth, Genesis Rhapsodos & Cloud Strife, Sephiroth & Cloud Strife
Series: Things Just Kinda Happen to Cloud, Huh [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017346
Comments: 288
Kudos: 648





	1. The Murder Toddler

**Author's Note:**

> *wild, distant cackling*  
> if you think this is crack now, just wait until I get going

Cloud was fucked.

It was really that simple. He was fucked. But goddamnit, he was going to go down as spitefully and spectacularly as humanly possible. Phoenix burned the mansion to ash behind him as he glared up...and up...and  _ up _ at the SOLDIER in the red coat, who was gaping stupidly at his summon. He backed off a few steps, pulling his sword-turned-makeshift-toboggan with him through the snow.

_ Get bent, SOLDIER-boy, _ he thought, staring murder at the man.  _ Touch me again and I’ll set YOU on fire. And stab you. At the same time. _

“Holy shit,” the man breathed, looked back and forth between Cloud and Phoenix several times. “How did...you’re...did I just see...”

Idiot. At least he was bewildered into inaction. Cloud pondered his options for a moment and then started heading off toward the path that led up into the Nibel mountains. Unfortunately, the SOLDIER didn’t stand around like a stupid, dead fish for very long.

“Woah there, little one!” he said, hurriedly crunching through the snow after Cloud, who, irritatingly, was reduced to a top jogging speed comparable to that of a snail.

“No!” Cloud snapped, reaching to detach one of the smaller blades that composed Tsurugi as he felt hands close around his torso. Too late. He was hauled up into the SOLDIER’s arms and set on a hip. He really fucking wished he’d found a way to keep more than just his boxers and shirt on, but even those were in serious danger of falling off at any second.

“Where are your parents, sweetheart?” the SOLIDER asked, blue eyes still a bit dazed and disbelieving.

“No!” Cloud repeated forcefully, and punched the man directly in the nose. Given that he still had  _ (most) _ of his mako strength and that he struck point-blank, he succeeded in breaking said nose and was dropped into a snowdrift for his troubles.

“Shit!” the man cursed, reeling backward as one hand flew up to stem the gush of blood from his nose, “how the  _ hell—?” _

Cloud scrambled to grab a blade and make good on his unspoken threat, but the SOLDIER finally made a tactically sound decision and cast a Sleep spell on him. With an enraged squall, Cloud faceplanted into Tsurugi and everything went dark.

* * *

_ “Seph,” _ Genesis hyperventilated into the PHS,  _ “oh Goddess, there’s—I found...it’s fucking—I, Phoenix was—I mean it’s, he’s a toddler, how—” _

“Slow down!” Angeal said, standing with Sephiroth as they both listened through his PHS, “what’s happening?”

“Angeal, I just witnessed a TODDLER summon PHOENIX. I am FREAKING OUT.”

As Sephiroth tried to figure out if that was some kind of slang he was unaware of, Angeal frowned at the PHS and said “Genesis, if this is some kind of joke—”

“You’re damn right it’s not a joke because this isn’t fucking  _ funny!” _ Genesis snapped. “I have a  _ mako-enhanced _ baby in my arms  _ as we speak _ and not one fucking bit of it is a JOKE! A blond baby with a  _ very distinctive sword _ that’s twice as tall as he is. I swear to the Goddess, if you don’t meet me in Costa as fast as possible I will take your Buster sword and  _ shove it up your ass! _ ” 

And then he hung up.

_ What, _ thought Sephiroth as he came to the conclusion that Genesis was being almost entirely literal. He stared at the PHS. Angeal stared at the PHS. Then they stared at each other until the full impact of Genesis’s words really struck them.

_ Blond. Sword. Move quickly. _

“Helicopter?” Angeal said.

“Helicopter,” Sephiroth agreed, and together they booked it out of the apartment.

* * *

The moment Angeal opened the front door to their shared vacation house in Costa Genesis was there, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him in. “Ange,” he whimpered, “what the  _ fuck? What the FUCK?” _ He looked like he’d gone on a week-long pub crawl through the slums, eyes wild and bloodshot, face pale.

“Gen?” Angeal asked, bewildered. 

Genesis took Angeal’s face in his hands and leaned in until their noses nearly touched. “Angeal. The toddler has scars. He has so many scars. And so much mako. Angeal. Angeal someone tortured a toddler. He summoned Phoenix and broke my nose. I have lost my grasp on reality.”

Angeal still had barely a clue what was happening, but he pulled Genesis into a hug and squeezed until the other man went limp against him. Gen sobbed once, convulsively, and then his arms came up to return the hug and yeah, Angeal could understand why a tortured, mako-enhanced toddler might elicit that response. Especially a tortured, mako-enhanced toddler that had absolutely blindsided  _ all of them. _

Sephiroth closed the front door and waited quietly to the side, watching them with a blank, vaguely-bewildered look in his eyes.

“Seph,” Genesis said, muffled into Angeal’s shoulder. “Go...look at the baby and come back. And the sword. It’s in the storage room.” He didn’t seem to be willing to budge up just yet, so Angeal offered Seph a reassuring half-smile and a nod. The silver-haired man nodded back and quietly went upstairs.

Sephiroth came back five minutes later as pale as a ghost, eyes to the floor, with...a toddler in his arms. “He looks exactly like the man in the nightmares,” he murmured. “And the sword certainly matches.”

“Alright,” Angeal said, taking a deep breath. “They look the same. Why did you bring him out here?”

Sephiroth looked at him blankly, which was a slight improvement from staring at the floor. “I...don’t...know…” he said haltingly. He glanced down at the kid’s squishy, sleeping face. “He looked...small.”

Well, that made no sense, but then again Seph’d had a very unusual upbringing and it was entirely possible that seeing a clearly-experimented-on toddler had triggered some kind of odd empathy instincts.

Genesis groaned and straightened, breaking the hug. Angeal cautiously let one hand linger on his friend’s shoulder. It was accepted, which was a good sign. “I’ll Esuna him, hold on.” His bracer flashed, removing the toddler from his enchanted sleep.

The baby woke with a little coo, shifting his head to nuzzle sleepily into Sephiroth’s chest, which was  _ absolutely adorable. _ Angeal barely bit back a coo of his own. “Mmh?” His eyes fluttered open and...that was definitely a mako glow, as strong as any First Class. In a toddler. Angeal felt a little bit like crying at the sight. Poor kid.

The tiny blond yawned, rubbing at his face, and squinted blearily up at Sephiroth. Everyone started to relax as nothing terrible happened—no Phoenix summons, no wailing fits, no sudden start of the apocalypse. Just a little boy, peacefully waking.

Those little mako-blue eyes narrowed, eyebrows scrunching together. The chubby hand slowly lowered. Sephiroth stared back down at him, fascinated. The baby’s eyes widened abruptly. He froze. Sephiroth’s eyes widened and he froze too, uncertain.

Then all hell broke loose.

* * *

Genesis was once again stunned into inaction as the kid  _ screamed _ at the top of his lungs, a sound of pure horror, and rocked backward into Seph’s arm to kick him full-force in the jaw with both heels. They didn’t have to wonder about how strong mako enhancements could make a toddler—the answer was, quite clearly, ‘as strong as any Third.’ 

Sephiroth’s jaw broke with a jarring  _ CRACK _ and the kid fell to the ground, easily catching himself before he was injured. He dove between Sephiroth’s legs and was off like a shot, disappearing into the kitchen beyond.

That woke him up quickly. “Fuck!” Genesis said, catching Seph’s arm and activating his Cure as Angeal ran after the boy. “Are you alright?”

Sephiroth looked thoroughly startled, but his eyes were clear and focused as green light danced over his jaw, knitting the bone back together. In fact, his eyes looked far less disturbed now than they had been before a literal infant had caused him bodily harm.

There really was no opportunity to dwell on that fact, however, because Angeal cursed passionately from the kitchen, startling them both. Their honorable friend tended to save vulgar language for the most fraught situations. 

“Woah! Woah, kiddo, it’s okay! It’s okay, hey buddy, let’s put down the knives—”

Seph and Gen exchanged a glance, eyes wide, and scrambled to help Angeal subdue the apparently armed toddler. Of course the baby who broke Sephiroth’s face would arm himself within thirty seconds of waking. Of course. Why not.

What the  _ fuck. _

* * *

Cloud woke up without any dreams, which was unusual. He couldn’t remember letting Tifa put him under with a Sleep either. It was nice to go a night without his nightmares waking both of them up, but enchanted sleep tended to make him feel more exhausted later, like overdosing on caffeine, so they didn’t use it very often. He made a noise, rubbing his cheek against Tifa as he contemplated going back to sleep for a little while.

Tifa...felt oddly firm this morning. Was he resting on her stomach? She usually kicked him if he shifted down that far.

“Mmh?” he commented intelligently, forcing his eyes open. Everything was super blurry and he could still feel the dregs of the spell addling him. His jaw split in a yawn and he scrubbed a hand over his face.

Wait a second. Why did his face feel off? Why did his  _ hand _ feel off?

He squinted up at the person hovering over him, swimming through the fog of his thoughts. Silver hair...fascinated green eyes with cat-slit pupils…

_ Sephiroth. _

Adrenaline coursed through his body like a lightning strike. His vision cleared abruptly and he went absolutely still as he realized that 1) Sephiroth was a hell of a lot larger than he should have been 2) he was a hell of a lot  _ smaller _ than he should have been 3) Sephiroth was... _ holding him (?!?) _ and 4)  _ Sephiroth was alive. And holding him. In his arms. Casually. _

So Cloud did what any reasonable person would have done: he screamed at the top of his lungs and kicked the shit out of his mortal enemy’s fucking face.

There was a loud  _ CRACK _ as Sephiroth’s jaw broke beneath the force of Cloud’s heels. Then he was, thank Gaia, dropped on his head. He caught himself though, tumbling forward to dive between the Demon’s legs. Safely out of grabbing range, he  _ ran _ for everything he was worth and abruptly remembered why that was a problem. He was in the past  _ (because of Gaia) _ and also dangerously close to being a literal infant  _ (because of Jenova) _ and also kidnapped  _ (because of that SOLDIER in the red coat, fuck that guy). _

The realization didn’t really help him much and he honestly felt as if his brain had just been scrambled like an egg, so he fell back on his instincts. There was a kitchen in front of him. Kitchen meant knives. Knives meant stabbing Sephiroth, who was probably the one chasing him.

Good enough.

He leapt up onto the counter and snatched two steak knives from the block, leaping off and tucking into a roll when he felt a hand graze the back of his shirt  _ (his shirt that actually fit, had those fuckers changed him?!) _ . He whirled, slashing, and felt vindicated when the person chasing him  _ (not Sephiroth) _ cursed passionately and backed off, hands raised. The dark-haired man was  _ enormous, _ almost Barret-sized, and he had...the Buster sword on his back?

_ Shit, nope, don’t think about it. _

The man’s mako-blue eyes were wide. “Woah! Woah, kiddo, it’s okay! It’s okay, hey buddy, let’s put down the knives—”

“NO!” Cloud said, pacing backward as he tried to find an escape without actually taking his eyes off the man. He did his best to promise death with his glare alone, but it probably didn’t work as well in a kid’s body as it did when he was twenty-three.

The other two—Sephiroth and the one in the red coat,  _ fuck _ that guy—came running in and all of the sudden Cloud lost his tenuous grip on his rationality. Rage bubbled up in his gut as he met the eyes of the silver-haired nightmare who was the ultimate cause of all this bullshit. Any thoughts of finesse went right out the window  _ (not that what he’d done in Nibelheim had been particularly subtle) _ and he decided, then and there, to kill Sephiroth  _ now. _ A cry of pure, unadulterated hate burst from his lungs.

“SEPHIROTH!” he howled.

Well. No.  _ Tried _ to howl. Because what actually came out of his mouth was, “SEPHIWOTH!”

The SOLDIERs all choked, their faces doing that thing where you’re surprised and you want to laugh even though you know it’s not appropriate and possibly not even funny at all—eyes wide, brows arched, mouths twisted in a kind of half-suppressed smile. Cloud stuttered in his movements, mortified by his unexpected lisp.

_ Oh Gaia take me now, _ he prayed, because he knew utterance was never,  _ ever,  _ going to be forgotten by these men.

That single moment of shock and distraction was enough for the dark-haired SOLDIER to act. He grabbed a dishtowel and unceremoniously hurled it into Cloud’s face.  _ “ACK!” _ Cloud said, staggering and flailing his knives defensively as he tried to shake the towel off. Too late. Hands closed over his arms, palms spanning from wrist to elbow, and his commandeered weapons were forced out to a harmless angle. A second later, someone else pried the knives out of his hands and he was disarmed less than a minute after arming himself.

_ Fucking depressing. _

Cloud tried to kick, but it did nothing as he was simply scooped up off the floor and pinned to someone’s chest. He finally managed to shake the towel off and found himself face-to-face with the dark-haired SOLDIER. At least it wasn’t Sephiroth...not that it really made Cloud any less angry.

“Okay, hey, it’s okay,” the guy was cooing at him, automatically trying to bounce him like a fussy baby. “It’s okay, shh…”

Cloud snarled at him, squirming, but it didn’t really do much because he was  _ the size of a toddler. _ “No!” he said, since apparently that was the only safe thing to say. Fuck. This was going to be a theme wasn’t it.

He was fucked.


	2. Would You Like to Phone a Friend?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few calls are made, and some new voices introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter of Saving Subject C is getting close to done, but hoo boy did this one fight us.

The toddler fought against Angeal’s hold, growling like an angry little kitten as he squirmed. His strength was absolutely alarming to feel firsthand, very close to the level of a Third. It was only Angeal’s size and First Class enhancements that allowed him to keep the tiny blond safely pinned. 

Nothing Angeal said calmed him, which...okay, none of them had much experience with kids of any age, and from the toddler’s perspective he had no reason  _ not _ to be scared. Or angry. Or whatever the hell was going on in his head.

Because Angeal had  _ no idea _ what was going on in that little head. 

The kid was mad, at first, until suddenly his lip quivered and fat tears welled up in his mako-bright eyes. That made sense—babies cried. What made less sense was the look of startled horror that crossed his face, followed by a pure, burning, destory-the-kitchen-in-a-tantrum type  _ fury. _ Then the fury folded back into crying after a few moments of violent thrashing, which circled back into horror and frustration, which circled back into fury.

That cycle went on for a little while, with the three adults standing by more or less helplessly, until Angeal was suddenly struck with an idea so good that his knees almost gave out in relief.

“Genesis,” he grunted, arms straining as the toddler went into another fit of fury. “Get my PHS and call my mom.”

Genesis blinked at him for a moment before his words really registered.  _ “Yes!” _ he said. “Oh Goddess that is a wonderful idea.” He fished Angeal’s PHS from his pants pocket and quickly dialed Gillian’s number, his foot tapping nervously as he waited. “Mrs. Hewley!” he blurt out as soon as the line connected.

“Wh—Genesis? Is that you?” Even off speaker mode they could all hear her voice, though it was a little hard over the flood of noise from the toddler. “Is Angeal okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine. We just have a bit of an issue that we are, uh, shall we say less than qualified to deal with and we wanted your advice?” He sounded far more high-strung than usual, to Angeal at least, but that wasn’t so surprising considering the events of the past fifteen minutes.

“...alright,” his mother said slowly, “what is it?”

“How would one go about getting a toddler to calm down?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a very long moment. “Genesis,” she said calmly. “Tell me the truth. Did either of you get a surprise baby?”

Sepiroth actually had to stifle a slightly-hysterical laugh at that, then another when Genesis answered: “well, I’ll admit he  _ was _ a surprise, but he’s not either of ours.”

Then they all paled as it occurred to them that no, they actually did not have any kind of assurance that this very obviously experimented-on, mako-enhanced, homicidal toddler was not, in fact, genetically related to any of them.

But no one was stupid enough to voice this thought, so Angeal’s mother exhaled a little in relief. “Okay. Do you know what upset him?”

Genesis glanced at Angeal. Angeal shook his head emphatically, trying to convey  _ ‘do not tell my mother the toddler is upset because we took his knives’ _ using only his eyebrows.

With a grimace, Genesis said, “he is upset because we took away an item he wanted.”

“And you can’t give it back.”

Spoken with the dryness of a desert: “Alas, we cannot.”

“What have you tried so far?”

They all looked at the currently-sobbing child. “Angeal is...holding him. He tried speaking calmly earlier.”

“Alright, try putting him down and letting him tantrum himself out.”

_ NO, _ Angeal mouthed. The kid would probably try to murder them again. Or bum-rush a fucking window. At this point he would put very little past the kid. Sephiroth nodded in agreement.

“It is ah...currently inadvisable to set him down?” Genesis hesitantly relayed.

Angeal’s mother clicked her tongue. “Why?”

“He...might hurt himself.”

She made a noise of understanding. “Ah, I see. Okay, try flipping him upside down.”

They all blinked. “What?” Angeal said, which Genesis echoed to his mother.

“Flip him upside down or give him some other unexpected but harmless physical sensation. Be  _ gentle, _ boys _. _ It should distract him out of his meltdown and  _ then _ you can try offering comfort.”

Genesis looked at Angeal. Angeal looked at Sephiroth. Sephiroth shrugged, as if to say  _ why are you looking at me, I am the least qualified out of all of us. _

Well, it wasn’t like they had any better idea, and it didn’t look like this was going to end any time soon. So, carefully, Angeal shifted his grip and flipped the little blond upside-down once he’d gone limp from another crying jag. The toddler hiccupped, poorly-stifled sobs cutting off abruptly. His eyes went wide as saucers. He hung there for a second, well and truly startled out of his distress.

“Oh thank the goddess,” Genesis whispered, slumping with the relief they all felt. It worked. The kid had calmed down. The kid was...drawing in a deep breath—?

_ “FUCK!” _ shrieked the toddler at the top of his lungs, and promptly kicked Angeal in the jaw.

“Didn’t work!” Genesis yelped, lunging to help as Angeal narrowly avoided becoming the second of them to have their jaw broken by a toddler.  _ “That did not work!” _

Somehow, in the ensuing shuffle Genesis and Angeal swapped cargo—Genesis had the kid, Angeal had the PHS. “Ah, mom,” Angeal said, rubbing at his bruised jaw, “that didn’t really...work.”

“Yes, I picked up on that,” she said dryly. “Ange, baby, did I hear that toddler cuss?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Mmm. Where’d you get him?”

“He...got us, kind of?”

His mother laughed. “Well, baby, hate to say it but this sounds like a kid you’re just going to have to wait out. Maybe give him a teething toy to chomp on, but other than that I think he’s just going to tantrum until he’s good and done.” She sounded very amused at their expense.

“Right,” Angeal sighed. “Thanks mom.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck boys.” She hung up. Angeal closed his PHS and put it away. The kid had  _ kind of _ settled in Genesis’s arms, if ‘settling’ included going mostly still but glaring murder at them as he caught his breath. No one was stupid enough to think that meant it was safe to put him down.

“So,” said Genesis, unconsciously rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he held the kid, “teething toys?”

If it was possible, the kid’s glare became more murderous.

Sephiroth’s PHS chose that moment to ring. A look of puzzlement crossed his face briefly, but he took it out and flipped it open. “Sephiroth speaking,” he said brusquely as the kid made another valiant attempt to squirm out of Genesis’s grip.

“Uh, hi sir,” said a voice that Angeal only vaguely recognized. “This is Second Class Kunsel speaking. “I uh. There’s. A bit of a situation? At the Tower? Um. A break-in. They got all the way into your apartment.” 

All three Firsts’ eyes went wide, so startled that they failed to notice how the kid went absolutely still as he, too, focused on the call.

“What!” Sephiroth barked, shifting immediately into General-mode. “Who? Where were the Turks?”

“Weeeeell…” said Kunsel, drawing the word out. They could all hear the grimace in his voice. “Uh, you see, sir, it was a group of...kids? They kind of...I mean. Okay, I’ll admit I don’t have many details right now, but it uh, seems like I was the only one who intercepted them?”

“Kids?”

“Yessir. Got some toddlers in the mix, couple of younger kids...oldest one looks maybe ten? And uh, I don’t really know how to say this, but...some of them have pretty wicked mako enhancements.”

Sephiroth looked to his friends in speechless disbelief. “I—a group of children, some with mako enhancements, got into my apartment without tipping off anyone but you, Second Class Kunsel?”

“Yeah, that’s about the gist of it,” Kunsel agreed miserably.

“Are the children still with you?”

“Yessir.”

“How did you calm them down?” It was a good question. If a Second Class had managed  _ multiple _ upset enhanced children, maybe they were just doing it wrong.

"Uh...well, you see sir. I uh. They...in the interest of full disclosure, I didn't really stop them or calm them down. They uh...might be holding me hostage at the moment?"

Angeal choked on his own spit. The kid ginned ear-to-ear.

Kunsel quickly added, "listen sir, the oldest one has a gun and very good aim, what was I supposed to do?"

"And they...let you call me?" Sephiroth asked in naked disbelief, running a hand through his hair.

"Really sir. They insisted."

Their own kid squirmed until his hand was free and held it out with a scowl on his face. “Give!” he demanded, wiggling his fingers.

“Kiddo—” Genesis started. 

On the other end of the line, Kunsel yelped suddenly. “Alright, alright, geez. Sir? The kids want you to hand the PHS over to...whoever that was.”

For a lack of anything better to do, Sephiroth handed over the PHS.

“Heww—” the kid stopped, grimacing. “Ugh, hi?” 

“Cloud,” came a young male voice. The SOLDIERs exchanged glances. Was that his name?

The toddler wilted into Genesis’s torso in clear relief. “Vincent!” Then, with an outraged glare directed at the ceiling: “Vincent, wha’ the fuck!”

“Are you okay, Cloud?” 

_ “NO!” _

The kid—Vincent, apparently—snickered. “Other than the obvious, are you okay?”

Cloud shot Sephiroth a narrow-eyed look of suspicion. “Yea,” he said grudgingly. “Who else?”

“All of us.”

The toddler looked like he didn’t know whether to be pleased or distressed. “Mmm.”

“And a few...extras.”

Mako-blue eyes widened. “Extwas?”

“Hiya Cloudy!” came a new voice. Cloud gaped, tears instantly forming and spilling over.

“...Zack?” he whispered.

“Mhm! And Aer too!”

Cloud burst into tears, dropping the PHS.  _ “Fuck,” _ he hiccuped, pressing his hands over his mouth. Genesis awkwardly held the kid closer as Sephiroth retrieved his PHS. Incredibly, Cloud  _ let _ Genesis cuddle him, hiding his face in the SOLDIER’s chest as he sobbed.

Sephiroth put the PHS back to his ear. “Can you please put Kunsel back on,” he politely asked whoever was still on the other end.

“In a sec,” Zack said cheerfully. “Listen, be nice to Cloudy, okay, Sephiroth? He’s had a rough go of it. He’s prob’ly going to try and kill you a couple more times, don’t take it personally.”

Sephiroth, who knew for a  _ fact _ no one had mentioned the toddler’s earlier attempted murder, was not particularly reassured by that statement.

“Kay, bye! See you soon, General!”

_ Very _ ominous.

Kunsel came back. “Yeah, so...they got really excited when you put Cloud on and they’re uh...demanding you come back to Midgar ASAP.” He squeaked. “I mean now sir,  _ now!” _

“Guys, be nice to Kuns!” Zack scolded, distant.

Cloud was still sobbing into Genesis’s coat. The sounds of muffled scuffling carried over the PHS from Sephiroth’s own apartment in Midgar, which was now evidently populated by a cadre of enhanced children holding one of his SOLDIERs hostage. Sephiroth looked to Angeal helplessly.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t like Angeal had any more of an idea what was going on or what to do. He floundered and settled on the obvious. “Well, I... guess we’re going back to Midgar.”


	3. Kunsel Did Nothing to Deserve This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kunsel did absolutely nothing to deserve this

Kunsel was having...a day. _Boy,_ was he having a day. 

First, there was a security breach that he only noticed by sheer happenstance. A breach which the Turks apparently had _not_ noticed. _One point to SOLDIER,_ he’d thought smugly. Then, he'd realized that the breach was an entire _group_ that was headed up to the SOLDIER First apartments, which was...not great. So he’d decided to tail them just long enough to get the info the Turks would need to neutralize them without unnecessary casualties (and maybe because he was a little curious, sue him). _Then_ he'd caught up to them _in General Sephiroth's apartment_ only to realize that the group was composed of _literal children._

To be perfectly honest, he'd completely blanked, which was a very unusual feeling for him.

Either way, the little tyke with a wild mane of black hair and mako eyes _(which, could he just say: what the fuck?)_ had spotted him and hollered "KUNSEL!" at the top of his lungs.

And again, he repeated: what the fuck. There weren't many SOLDIERs who even knew his name, nevermind random security-breaching mako-enhanced babies.

Kunsel wasn’t particularly proud to admit it, but by the time coherent thought re-emerged in his brain, he was being herded at gunpoint by a black-haired, red-eyed ten-year-old into a chair where they trussed him up like a Yule turkey. 

And that was how Kunsel found himself being held hostage by a group of literal babies.

He listened in numb disbelief as the group squabbled over what to do with him. Apparently their target was Sephiroth _(what the fuck)_ and someone named 'Cloud' as an extension of that, but the General was very clearly not home. One of the older kids, a brown-haired boy with a very bizarre toy...robot...cat (?) at his side, stole Kunsel's PHS from his pocket _("sorry, sorry!")_ and started fiddling with it. After a minute or two he informed the group that Sephiroth and Commander Hewley had requisitioned a helicopter and were out of Midgar entirely.

They all groaned, including what he suddenly realized was a _literal infant child_ in the arms of one of the older, dark-skinned kids. They’d brought a _baby_ on an infiltration/assassination/retrieval mission?? Wait, scratch that thought—they were _all_ babies. 

...no, scratch _that_ thought _—_ it didn’t help.

 _Maybe someone drugged me,_ Kunsel thought to himself as the infant made what was apparently a very valuable contribution to the discussion.

“Good point, Yuffie,” said Vincent to the baby. He turned and leveled his gun at Kunsel again, who was too far gone by this point to feel anything other than the kind of vague existential disbelief you’d feel if you watched a milk carton spontaneously grow legs and walk away. “You. Call Sephiroth.”

_...what?_

“What?” he managed to say. Sure, he actually _did_ have General Sephiroth’s PHS number (illicitly, of course), but why would they _assume_ that?

 _Because they are literally children,_ his mind supplied helpfully, which wasn’t actually very helpful.

“Vincent, I doubt he has—oh.” The kid with Kunsel’s PHS started to object even as he fiddled with the device, only to stop in surprise. “Nevermind, he actually does have Sephiroth’s number.” The kid looked up and squinted at him with a weirdly adult kind of suspicion. “You’re just a Second Class. Why do you have this?”

“Um,” said Kunsel intelligently.

“Later, Reeve,” said Vincent, taking the PHS, hitting the number, and holding the phone to Kunsel’s ear. “Tell him we’re here.” How that command managed to remain threatening when coming from a dinky little ten-year-old, Kunsel had no idea.

Maybe it was the gun.

For the first time in his life since he was roughly six, Kunsel felt like crying from frustration. But since that would have made him look like a bigger baby than the actual babies, he instead took a deep breath and scrambled to put together enough brain cells to speak coherently to his superior officer.

“Sephiroth speaking,” came the man’s voice, nearly as unreadable as usual, though Kunsel absentmindedly noted that he sounded...oddly stressed.

“Uh, hi sir,” Kunsel managed, swallowing nervously as he glanced at the horde of children—an alarming number of which were clearly mako-enhanced—that was watching his every move like a pack of terrifyingly adorable little wolves. “This is Second Class Kunsel speaking. I uh.” He scrambled for words. The time it took for the PHS to connect had _not_ been enough to pull together enough brain cells for this conversation. “There’s. A bit of a situation? At the Tower? Um.” The kids were still staring with laser-like intensity. He felt a bead of sweat trail down the center of his back. “A break-in. They got all the way into your apartment.”

“What!” Sephiroth barked, and Kunsel cringed. Yeah, that was about the reaction he expected. “Who? Where were the Turks?”

 _Hoo boy._ The General wasn’t going to like this next bit. “Weeeeell…” Kunsel said, drawing the word out with a grimace. “Uh, you see, sir, it was a group of...kids? They kind of...I mean,” _Shiva,_ there was no good way to explain this. “Okay, I’ll admit I don’t have many details right now, but it uh, seems like I was the only one who intercepted them?”

To his surprise, Sephiroth didn’t react with disbelief—or at least, not the right kind of disbelief for the news Kunsel had given him. “Kids?” he asked, and his inflection was less _‘are you sober, SOLDIER?’_ and more _‘you’ve gotta be fuckin’ shitting me.’_

“Yessir,” he said, looking at the kids. “Got some toddlers in the mix, couple of younger kids...oldest one looks maybe ten? And uh, I don’t really know how to say this, but...some of them have pretty wicked mako enhancements.”

“...I—a group of children, some with mako enhancements, got into my apartment without tipping off anyone but you, Second Class Kunsel?”

Well, it sounded way worse when the General said it like _that._ “Yeah, that’s about the gist of it,” Kunsel agreed miserably. Loathe though he was to admit it, he really should have called the Turks.

“Are the children still with you?”

 _Boy howdy,_ he thought, eyeing the gun still aimed at him. “Yessir,” he said aloud.

“How did you calm them down?” the General asked, which was so unexpected that it threw Kunsel for a moment. What kind of question was _that_ at a time like _this?_

"Uh...well, you see sir. I uh.” Fuck, there really was no way to not make himself sound like the most pathetic SOLDIER in existence. He resigned himself to it with an internal whimper. “They...in the interest of full disclosure, I didn't really stop them or calm them down. They uh...might be holding me hostage at the moment?"

Kunsel heard someone on the other end of the line—Commander Hewley, at a guess—choke. Despite himself, he felt his face heat up, and he desperately tacked on “listen sir, the oldest one has a gun and very good aim, what was I supposed to do?"

"And they...let you call me?"

 _Sir what the fuck do you think,_ thought Kunsel irritably. Out loud, he said: "Really sir. They insisted."

Then, from somewhere close to the General, a tiny voice demanded: “Give!”

Did the General have a kid with him? What—oh no. _Oh no._ Kunsel’s stomach dropped. He looked at the group of children holding him hostage and quickly re-categorized some of Sephiroth’s responses. They wanted Sephiroth because they were looking for...

“Kiddo—” said Commander Rhapsodos (whose presence Kunsel filed away for later) distantly.

The gun barrel was suddenly right in Kunsel’s face. He yelped, reeling backward only to yank against his bindings. “Tell him to hand the phone over. _Now,”_ said Vincent in a low whisper. The rest of the group loomed menacingly behind him, even the infant, which was actually very impressive.

“Alright, alright, geez,” Kunsel said, craning his neck away from the gun. “Sir? The kids want you to hand the PHS over to...whoever that was.”

Vincent took the PHS, watching Kunsel like a hawk even as he waited for the other kid to be put on the line. Kunsel did his best not to sweat nervously. Was it just him or did this Vincent kid have an uncanny resemblance to the Turks?

On the General’s end, the tiny voice spoke into the receiver: “Heww—Ugh, hi?”

“Cloud,” Vincent greeted, and Kunsel suddenly felt a little better about himself. Even under extreme duress he could still guess the impossible.

Meanwhile, the whole group of kids churned in excitement at the exchange, a few even crying and hugging each other. They all crowded closer around Vincent, eager to hear what they could from the PHS. 

“Vincent!” Cloud cried, surprised joy in his voice. It quickly turned to outrage, though. “Vincent, wha’ the fuck!”

_(Kunsel found that he felt a little more disturbed that the toddler was cussing than that the toddler was being expertly hunted down by a pack of other toddlers._

_Which probably said bad things about how his day was going.)_

“Are you okay, Cloud?” Vincent asked, head cocking slightly to the side. The gun never so much as wavered away from Kunsel’s face.

“NO!”

Vincent snickered, then looked oddly startled. He shook his head a little and asked: “Other than the obvious, are you okay?”

“Yea,” Cloud said, with an impressive level of rancor for a kid who couldn’t even pronounce his ‘r’s. “Who else?”

“All of us.”

Oh thank _Shiva,_ at least there weren't any more of them to pop out of the woodwork. Kunsel slumped a in relief.

“Mmm.”

Something like mischief gleamed in Vincent’s eyes, which was frankly terrifying. “And a few...extras,” he added.

“Extwas?” Cloud asked in surprise.

The same black-haired tyke who had known Kunsel’s name barged forward and took the PHS, grinning like he was on a sugar high. “Hiya Cloudy!”

Cloud’s voice wavered as he said “...Zack?”

“Mhm! And Aer too,” Zack said, taking the hand of a girl about his age with brown hair and green eyes. She grinned at him even as tears spilled in an endless stream down her chubby cheeks.

Cloud burst into tears and then there was a clattering sound like he’d dropped the General’s PHS. “Fuck,” the kid said distantly.

After a delay, Kunsel heard Sephiroth’s voice. “Can you please put Kunsel back on,” he asked politely.

Zack winked at Kunsel, who wondered if it was a threat or an attempted reassurance. “In a sec,” he boldly told the General. “Listen, be nice to Cloudy, okay, Sephiroth? He’s had a rough go of it. He’s prob’ly going to try and kill you a couple more times, don’t take it personally.”

Kunsel stared. What did he mean, ‘try to kill’ Sephiroth? 

...what did he mean _‘a few more times?!’_

“Kay, bye! See you soon, General!” said Zack, and handed the PHS back to Vincent, who put it to Kunsel’s ear again.

“Tell them to come back here,” he murmured, again low enough that the SOLDIERs on the other end of the line would have a very hard time hearing him. The gun still had yet to move.

“Yeah, so…” said Kunsel, who at this point didn’t even know what he was saying. “They got really excited when you put Cloud on and they’re uh...demanding you come back to Midgar ASAP.” One of the kids kicked his boot, angrily mouthing ‘NOW!’ He squeaked involuntarily, going cross-eyed and leaning all the way back as Vincent nonverbally seconded the demand. “I mean _now_ sir,” he blurted out, “now!”

Zack came to his rescue, fearlessly pushing the gun back and shooing away the other kids. “Guys, be nice to Kuns!” he scolded, hands on hips and legs akimbo. ‘Aer’ (though that sounded like a nickname to Kunsel’s ears) took his side, together forming a little defensive barrier around Kunsel. At some point the General hung up, but everyone was a bit too preoccupied to notice.

“He did what we asked,” Aer said, “no need to bully him!”

“He’s a SOLDIEW, Aewith,” a black-haired toddler girl said, glaring at him. A little bit of the menace was lost to her lisp, but he admired the effort.

“He’s my fr—uhhh,” said Zack, glancing at him nervously.

 _What,_ thought Kunsel, because that was really all he had left to think.

“He’s a good one,” the boy amended, tilting his head side-to-side. “We want this one. Let’s just keep him until Cloud gets here and we can kick everyone’s asses!”

And for once—for the _very first time in his life—_ Kunsel decided he really didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know if they meant to pull Shinra down brick-by-brick. He just wanted to slink back to his apartment with his tail between his legs. He’d even swear off snooping forev—well not _forever,_ but he’d swear it off for a few days if he just got out of this alive and _sane._

Naturally, that was the exact moment the Turks showed up.

**Author's Note:**

> [ Come join me on Tumblr for illustrations and updates (and FF7 shitposts)](https://aimeelouart.tumblr.com/)   
> 


End file.
